


Vulnerability

by discopolice



Category: Wakfu
Genre: Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-24 05:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discopolice/pseuds/discopolice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"and says he wants to be like me when he's grown / shit, but I ain't finished growing." Qilby raises Nora.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When she’s just born, he’s thirty and finds her thrust upon him without warning. “Here, take care of the kid,” like he’s not got his hands full being the champion of scientific advancement for the Eliatrope people. Now he and Shinonome have a sniffling infant – and it’s  _Nora_ , which can mean nothing good – and an overly playful baby dragon to add to their little family collection. Like she’ll break he takes the child into his arms, and she coos happily and grabs at his beard.

“Hello, kid.” He takes a bony finger and pokes it into her cheek, and she grabs it and pulls. Chibi laughs.

* * *

When she’s two, she calls him “papa” for the first time. It’s after he’s snatched her swiftly away from one of his experiments, bubbling and hot and  _dangerous,_  and he has no idea how to respond. He knows, after all, that he’s  _not_  her father, she hatched from an  _egg_  for Goddess’ sake, and he has to be quick with his response with the damn kid looking straight at his face.

“I’m not your father, Nora. I’m—“ But he’s caught without words when that face, innocent and forward and without the world-weariness that coats his heart, stares him naked in the eye. He sighs and carts her out of his lab.

* * *

 

When she’s seven, she breaks her leg, and when he sees her falling out of the tree he’s suddenly filled with adrenaline. Before he realizes it he’s running towards her, portaling for greater speed, and all he can think – though irrational he knows it to be – is  _oh goddess I hope she doesn’t land on her head oh goddess she’s gonna die_. Thankfully, she lands on her leg, but he swears he can hear the snap of bone. Without the slightest hesitation he scoops her up and carries her back into his lab.

He’s used to tears, and he’s used to blood, but their combination when he’s putting a cast on her leg makes his heart ache. He knows broken bones well enough to know they hurt, but he knows they don’t hurt  _that_  much, but Nora’s his… He proceeds not to think about Nora’s role in his life, just murmuring “you’ll be okay” to her as he wraps that frail leg in plaster.

* * *

 

When she’s ten, she starts puberty, and that’s a nightmare in itself. He knows the six original Eliatropes can’t reproduce (oh, he knows), so why do they have to go through this long and complicated process of sexual maturity?  _Why do they have to be so moody?_

Qilby wishes he knew, even more so when Nora chucks a book at him for the accident of walking in on her changing, or when she flips out on him for “not understanding.” He wants to yell  _oh, I understand, do you know how many lives I’ve lived?,_  but he’s got to come to terms sometime with the fact that he doesn’t really get it when he’s dealing with a girl coming of age.

* * *

 

When she’s thirteen, she comes to him questioning religion. She doesn’t know, she says, she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to be so grateful to a goddess she can’t see or feel. Qilby pours her a cup of tea, with honey the way she likes it, and sits her down for a talk.  
  
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know either.” He proceeds to spill his own doubts, as easily as breathing from the amount of times he’s cycled them in his head and with Chibi. Nora’s shoulders slump, she’s less tense now that she knows she’s not being judged, but unease is still pooling in her head.  
  
“I don’t understand. Why does Chibi need to keep these secrets?” Nora really doesn’t understand. She looks betrayed, searching for something true in the eyes of the man who raised her, and Qilby can’t help but drape his arm around her shoulders.  
  
“I don’t know either, Nora.” Qilby winces. “I wish he wouldn’t.”

* * *

 

When she’s fourteen, she takes notice of Yugo, and Qilby wants to scream.  
  
He wishes there were some other young man she could shack up with, anyone; he could be a criminal just as long as he  _isn’t Yugo._  That kid infuriates him beyond belief, he doesn’t know shit about how the world works but still worms his way into all the positions of power, and isn’t he eighteen anyway? After living with and teaching Nora day in and day out for fourteen years, not to mention that most of his lives she’s been younger anyway, he still sees her as this little girl who needs protecting.  
  
He almost vomits when he realizes this is how men feel when their daughters grow up.

* * *

 

When she’s fifteen, crying her eyes out over something stupid, she calls him “papa” for the second time.

Almost immediately she catches herself, though, and she clamps a hand over her mouth. “I mean, Qilby, I—“ yet he simply walks towards her, wraps his arms around her, and she sobs into his chest.

He’s seen Nora in so many stages of life he can’t count them all, but something in him aches desperately for that 15-year-old heart so vulnerable before him.

* * *

 

When she’s sixteen, he lies awake in bed with Chibi and asks him how to let go.

“Goddess, I’ve known her for eternity, when did I start thinking of her as  _my_  kid? It’s ridiculous! It’s just that…” Chibi wraps his arms tighter around Qilby, quieting him.

“That you raised her? That you were in charge of her  _life?_  It’s anything but stupid,” Chibi says. Qilby kisses the crown of Chibi’s head and smiles.

“I suppose when you put it that way.”

“So does that make me Nora’s other dad?” Qilby smacks Chibi under the covers.

* * *

 

When he passes, when she passes, he never quite stops seeing her as a kid.


	2. Chapter 2

He’s at his bench, delicately tapping his pinky against the glassware he’s holding to swirl its contents, when he hears the patter of little footsteps behind him. He knows it’s Nora without having to turn around; nobody but he, Chibi, Nora, and Shinonome know where this lab is. It’s his own little sanctuary, a niche carved out just for him, and only a precious few people are allowed to intrude on it.

So he raises himself from the stool, taking great care to gently guide the young girl away from anything caustic. (Qilby knows, after all, that he can’t say some experiments are dangerous; it’ll just make her more interested in them. Such are the downsides of nurturing the young curiosity of the naturally curious.) “Do you need something?” he asks, kindly, peering down through his glasses at the girl less than half his height.

“I want to help!” the tiny voice calls, and he looks down at Nora to notice her hand planted firmly on her hip, almost like a mirror of that posture he takes with Chibi sometimes – and he knows exactly where she got it from, too.

_Goddess help me_ , he thinks, but he  _knows_  who got him into this hole. And to see that curious face, untainted by the secrets of the Council, peering up at him… it’s worth having two little hands working on something less dangerous once in a while.

So he nods and takes her hand in his, leading her towards the racks of petri dishes in the back. She giggles quietly; she’s never been let this far into Qilby’s lab before. It feels almost forbidden to her, even more when she considers how few people know about this place, carved into the side of the Zinit. She feels close to Qilby, special, like she’s been trusted with a secret – and considering how many secrets she’s locked out of as a child, Qilby’s willing to give her just this one.

From the rack he pulls a tray containing several petri dishes, and she stands on her tiptoes to peer over, mystified. If she closes her eyes, she can see varying levels of blue glow; some of the dishes positively teem with Wakfu.

“Wow, they’re alive!” she gasps, and Qilby just chuckles at the pure  _wonder_  in her eyes.

“Yes, Nora, but they’re not one being. You see,” and he points to the tiny dots on one of the dishes, “every one of those dots contains millions of tiny, tiny organisms, so small you can’t even see them. They’re alive and can move around, just like us, and they can split in half to make more of themselves.”

Nora’s just staring now, in blatant wonder, while Qilby reaches over to retrieve a box of slides and a metal loop. Eventually, though, she pipes up, almost worried: “What are you doing with them? Will they die?”

“You see, not all of the tiny organisms that populate our world are beneficial,” Qilby says, and Nora relaxes slightly. “Some of them can make you very sick, and I’m developing a drug that will fight them off. So, yes, some of them will die; but they’re giving their Wakfu so that you won’t fall ill.”

The pink-haired girl gives him a look that transparently says “my hero” and his heart about melts right there. If she knew the slightest of his sins, she wouldn’t be so reverent, such a tiny ball of joy bouncing on her toes. But then, he thinks, she doesn’t need to know. She’s too innocent, too young to know so much of death… and selfishly, he wants to keep that shining smile for himself.

“Now, let’s get started.” And Qilby dips the loop into a flame, searing it of any contaminants that may remain on it; then, he presses it into Nora’s hand, sliding the plate with his control out to her. “Pick up one of the little dots, there. Scrape, but not too hard. It only takes a little.”

She does so while Qilby prepares a slide, and when he gets back it’s just a tad too much agar but he’ll let it go. Lab work takes training, after all, and he doesn’t want to see Nora’s face fall if he corrects her. “Now, let’s put this on the slide so we can check it out, hm?”

“Yay, microscope!” She runs over to the microscope, to a sharp “ah-ah, don’t run in the lab!” from Qilby, at which she immediately slows her pace. While he’s at it, he grabs the test tube rack he was working with earlier and brings it over; he may not mind having a little helper so much, after all.


End file.
